Over the short span of my life I have been exposed to a diverse number of people and also to a diverse number of environments. Back in Peru I was raised with the immense love of my parents and the love of my brothers and sister. We used to work really hard to get the essential: food. Anything additional we were able to get besides food was considered a blessing.
As far as I can remember, we never celebrated any of our birthdays nor had other types of celebrations except religious ones. But these religious celebrations were always enjoyed in a spiritual way. We could never afford to buy anything fancy. My mom would make all of our clothes. No fancy catalogs or the Internet to buy things at that time and more importantly no money. We were raised with very little material dependence. But we would always share the little things we had.
For some reason, I often used to complain to my dad about our situation. I would always complain to him about this or that. My dad was a very patient man and he would always listen to all of us. He had very little education and so did my mom. But I believe he was a very wise person with a strong faith I have never seen in anybody else in my entire life. He used to tell me that we were lucky by being the way we were. I would always argue with him. But my dad would manage to side track me all the time. I used to think that my dad could have been a good politician, although he would have failed as such because I don't think he liked to tell lies.
When I came to the U.S. for graduate school, I was obviously exposed to a completely different environment. I was literally speechless by the abundance of resources (that most Americans take for granted). I was fascinated by the high level of exposure to other cultures in Champaign since the U of I hosts thousands of international students. People in this environment exhibited a different behavior to the one I was used to.
In this new environment, one of my biggest problems was spending money.
I simply could buy nothing because I used to obsess with comparing the
prices of items sold in this country with the prices I would pay in Peru
for similar items. I would additionally torture myself by thinking how
much the money I would spend here would buy in Peru. I would totally disregard
quality when making these comparisons.
I still remember that on one occasion a Cosmo resident organized a shopping
trip to Market Place Mall in Champaign. I joined the crowd since I really
needed to buy some winter clothes. My goal was to spend between twenty
to thirty dollars (equivalent to the amount I would spend in Lima) on
that trip and acquire a good winter jacket, pants, etc. How ignorant I
was.
I also took for granted the advantages of living in a furnished place such as Cosmo. Later, I became very close to a Cosmo resident and together we bought a car. I was very proud of my purchase but Kazumi, now my wife, was very embarrassed about that. I had a hard time convincing her of the advantages of owning a $150 car. I think she felt sorry to destroy what I thought was a real feat and said yes to stop listening to my arguments.
In August of this year, I left Champaign to join the University of Arkansas
at Little Rock as a new faculty member. My wife and I came to Little Rock
just a few days before school started here and we both felt as if we had
just arrived to the U.S. for the first time. Even though we had just moved
to a neighboring state of Illinois, we had a hard time understanding people!
The accent was very strong here.
We did all sorts of things and discovered a little of Little Rock together. We were shocked when we went to purchase our mattresses. The one my wife bought in Illinois cost her only $50 but the prices of the mattresses we saw here were near one thousand dollars! We also needed to buy a car. We bought a new Honda Civic!
One of the things we learnt during our hectic days in Arkansas was that
Clinton and his family are considered really big. We found postcards,
not only of the Clintons, but also of their cat, Socks!
We also had an opportunity to see Southern big scale first hand. At the
University of Arkansas, a multimillionaire held a picnic for the staff
and faculty. At the picnic, each person was given a big tray full of food;
a whole chicken, a turkey leg, a huge turkey burger, a huge rib, sausages,
some beef, potato salad, cole slaw, a big sugar cane, a bag of potato
chips, and a bottle of water (with the family picture on the bottle)!
And this was just the beginning.
I think I now partially understand why my dad (I still argue with him in my dreams) used to tell us that we were lucky the way we were in Peru. Since I never actually owned anything, all I have now is abundant when compared to the past since I have nothing to compare. I see that the students around here have a similar background as mine. I really enjoy seeing that type of spirit with my students.
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| Julio
and Kazumi with Julio's mom, Alejandrina Arias de Urbina, who was visiting Champaign |